[EN] WISO Direkt: 26/2017 Building Culture - Key to Better Urban and Rural Quality of Life

Publication

Building culture is the key to a decent life in our cities, towns and villages. But politics has tended to neglect this area of activity. That must change under a future Social Democrat-led government.

Whether or not we are aware of it, how we build and how we look after what we have built has an enormous influence on our everyday lives. Although awareness and appreciation of urban quality of life have grown enormously in recent years, our building culture is still a long way from being a natural aspect of politics at the municipal, state and national levels. Given that quality of life in our urban areas and rural regions is absolutely central to the vision of a – social, sustain-able and democratic – decent life, we will have to pay greater attention to questions concerning building culture. The following aspects are central.

The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) is a non-profit German foundation funded by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany, and headquartered in Bonn and Berlin. It was founded in 1925 and is named after Germany's first democratically elected President, Friedrich Ebert. FES is committed to the advancement of both socio-political and economic development in the spirit of social democracy, through civic education, research, and international cooperation. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung is the oldest political foundation in Germany.